Various cleaning utensils for bathing have been developed for use in conjunction with bar soap or liquid personal washing cleansers. U.S. Pat. No. 3,114,928 to Spiteri and U.S. Pat. No. 4,457,643 to Caniglia, both entitled “Sponge for Containing Soap”, describe sponge devices which use highly porous sponge material. However, this type of material does not have definite and consecutive open spaces leading to the center of the sponge so that water absorbed by the sponge is absorbed in layers tending to cause water to be trapped so that it cannot easily reach the soap. Another problem with devices such as these is the devices are constructed with the solid soap sandwiched between two flat sponges which tend to hold the soap too firmly in the center of the sponge. Thus, it is difficult for water to freely surround and mix with the soap to form lather, and also it is difficult for lather to be released. Although the prior art discloses employing cut or stamped holes, still the soap is not allowed to freely move about and be surrounded with water to encourage lather production, and the distribution of lather is limited. The holes are not well placed so that the edges of the sponge are not kept moistened, and the relatively large holes make water dissipate faster producing a poor concentration of lather. Another problem is that when the soap gets smaller it can become trapped in the inner edges of the device making the soap difficult to come into contact with water. Additionally, such devices tend to become weak from repeated use as the soap becomes smaller and the structure collapses. Other devices such as the one described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,738,294 to Duden et al., entitled “Solid Cleanser Holder,” are constructed of materials that tend not to easily retain water and thus have poor lather production. When the cleaning agent gets smaller from repeated use the structure also becomes weak. Moreover, soap insertion is more difficult thereby demanding more effort by consumers.
There are also many well known cleaning utensils for other tasks such as dishwashing. These include various sponges and scrubber-sponge combinations. One problem associated with the conventional way of washing dishes using such devices is that the “set-up time” can be long. Consider what is required to simply wash a few dishes using a scrubber or sponge. First the utensil must be located, and then an appropriate container must be found and filled with water and then liquid dishwashing soap. Another problem associated with the regular way of washing dishes is that the cleaning utensil can contaminate the dishwashing water. Once the dishwashing water becomes dirty, it typically becomes “greasy” and loses its ability to effectively clean the remaining dishes. Assume that the dishwashing solution had an initial capacity to wash 30 plates. To accomplish this task of washing the 30 plates, the user would have to wash the cleaning utensil before sinking it into the dishwashing solution. However, in practice, this does not happen since it would require too much additional time to finish the job. Thus, the potential capacity is typically never realized. More liquid soap is used than is necessary thereby wasting resources. Yet another problem with the conventional way of washing dishes is that the user may forget that the dishwashing water from previous uses should be thrown out since it is contaminated. Or, the user may not be sure whether the dishwashing water is contaminated, so he or she may throw the dishwashing water away even though it could have been used to clean additional dishes safely.
Some cleaning utensils have hollow reservoirs for storing liquid soap. For example, some dishwashing utensils have a hollow handle for storing liquid dishwashing soap. The set-up is long and requires precision to pour the solid soap into the reservoir. Although these devices are convenient for washing plates and flatware, they are generally not suitable for reaching narrow areas such as those found in glassware. In general, they are difficult to manage. Because of their design, these utensils fail to afford the same flexibility of ordinary scrubbers and sponges.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable for there to be a sponge cleaning utensil that overcomes the many deficiencies of the prior art and whose essential structure and principles of operation could be incorporated into a variety of different types of cleaning devices.